The most fascinating idea in Elizabeth Lesser’s Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow is the concept of the Phoenix Process. Named after the mythical bird that famously burns and rises from its own ashes, the Phoenix Process is a waking call to transition, renewal, and rebirth.
Elizabeth quotes the philosopher William James, who wrote that there are two kinds of people in this world: the ‘once-born’ and the ‘twice-born’. Once-born people do not stray from the familiar territory of who they think they are and what is expected of them. They prefer to stay safe, repeating what they already know—even when it makes them unhappy—and avoiding the questions brought to consciousness by the soul.
Twice-born people, on the other hand—whether through choice or calamity—choose the road less travelled. They enter the dark woods, make mistakes, suffer loss, and confront what needs to change within them to live a more genuine and radiant life. On this journey, they find a larger purpose to fulfil. However, the soul’s call is not always about fulfilling some larger purpose or serving others in the conventional, charitable ways. It may also be about discovering ‘some inner freedom to taste’. This can take the form of deepening our relationship with an intelligence far more vast than ourselves. Or becoming aware of a profound truth that sets us free, allowing for richer experiences and connections that give greater meaning to life.
Choice: The Subtle Call
At first, we are called in subtle ways: spontaneous, mad thoughts of completely overhauling our lives that we quickly swat away, a nebulous sense of malaise that slowly smothers us, and always—always—a small, still voice saying, “This place is grey and barren now. It’s time to move on.”
Unsurprisingly, we resist the change. There was a time when people were in touch with the cycles of life, and change was welcome and sacred. Death and shedding were not feared because renewal and flourishing always followed. We see it in nature because it is natural for all life, including mammals (which we often forget that we are). Modern life, with all its conveniences, dupes us into taking excessive comfort in what we know. Consequently, when transitions arrive, we go through them kicking and screaming—recoiling from the fires of refinement.
We prioritise the everyday concerns of survival and material gain while ignoring matters of the spirit. We spend a long time and considerable effort building lives that look and feel a certain way. Then, a strange wind blows our way and begins rocking the boat. We grow miserable yet resist the wind because we are too afraid to upset the status quo or change how others perceive us. When faced with difficulty or the unknown, we feel ashamed for struggling, for failing to hold up the image of perfection we portray in public. Of course, there is always the fear of losing our identity, which by this time is often wrapped up in roles we have outgrown.
When we are unable to admit this vulnerability, we remain stuck. Our carefully constructed lives become prisons.
We can become so practised at overriding our true feelings and ignoring or silencing those quiet missives from the soul that eventually, the soul goes quiet. We are left unmoored; a material body severed from its spirit, drifting without guidance, with no higher consciousness at the helm. Achievements feel empty and hollow because they have nothing to do with our true selves or our mission. They do not come from that deeper place where the still, small voice resides.
Then, one day, you wake up in a stranger’s life, feeling nothing like yourself. You don’t recognise who you’ve become, and it’s hard to remember who you wanted to be in the first place. You feel disconnected, confused, stuck and resentful because the cost of hanging on to the old has proved greater than the reward. The truth refuses to let you rest. It burns in your chest day and night, until your wilful self-deception curls into ash.
Calamity: The Not-So-Subtle Call
When we resist the subtle call to awaken to our true selves, it is tragic. Therefore, tragedy follows. The message grows louder and changes shape. It descends on us in the form of a sudden illness, an accident, divorce or estrangement from a loved one, the loss of a job, financial hardship, a drastic change in status… The more we run from it, the greater our anguish becomes. The harder we grip and insist on life staying a certain way, the more we lose control.
When we deny ourselves a life of truth, we often do it under the guise of self-sacrifice and generosity, in a bid to maintain happiness or stability for those close to us. We may deploy self-deception in service of this goal (I’m doing it for my family; it’s a noble sacrifice for the greater good), but really, it is a disservice to the very people we tell ourselves we are protecting. In fact, we are taking away opportunities for those around us (often children) to learn how to live truthfully.
The Gifts of Adversity
In darkness and uncertainty lie gifts and raw energies waiting to be harnessed into something beautiful. Most of us lack the skills for this kind of alchemy. We learned that pain is bad and we should avoid it at all costs; thus, our muscle for mining lessons from setbacks has atrophied. Rather than running and hiding from it, the courageous act is to sit with the discomfort and grow curious about it. Crisis, turmoil, and ‘negative emotions’ are all intelligent energies that enter our lives as messengers and portals.
It is important to engage with that intelligence, more so when you are stuck or have strayed far from yourself. In such times, more often than not, life is usually asking us: “Who are you now?”
You can answer this question from a place of fear and limitation and thus stay asleep—‘living a half-life, safe yet stunted’. Or—when you finally tire of your self-imposed incarceration—you can answer it from a place of love (for yourself, God and others) and openness to life in all its colours. You can yield to the furnace and surrender what needs to burn within you to the fire: grief, fear, shame, repression… Then rise from the ashes with the gifts of adversity. This is how you grow from being ‘once-born’ to ‘twice-born’. This is the Phoenix Process.
